Coventry Myths, Legends and Folktales

Hi All, Was recently thinking about the old myths and legends surrounding Coventry's History. I made a small list of the ones I've heard of: •  St. Catherine's Well, Coundon, being the entrance to hell (mostly likely a story made by mothers attempting to keep their young children away from the dangers of falling into the well). [Folktale] •  A mummified cat in the wall of the Old Mill Hotel / pub in Baginton. The folktale suggests that its removal is accompanied by 'bad luck'. [Folktale] • St. George living in Coventry and the associated stories including him slaying a dragon which lived in a lair at Quinton Pool, Cheylesmore. The Dragon apparently demanded maidens as a sacrifice at the Cheylesmore gate. [Legend] • William Shakespeare jilting a Coventry woman to marry Anne Hathaway [Legend / old Rumour] • The "spinning Circular Cafe" in the Lower Precinct. This is a personal one for me, I remember as a child my Uncle telling me that it used to spin and that the motor had broken many years before [Local urban Legend (tongue-in-cheek)] •  The Coventry Panther (2010, but across Warwickshire and surrounding areas for many decades of 'big cats' being spotted) [Unable to verify therefore:- Myth]   I was wondering if anyone else knew of anymore or more details of these ones? Hope you're all well and having a nice weekend

What a good idea , there'll be quite a few myths, legends and ghostly tales along with superstitions etc. The mummified cat isn't a unique one in Coventry, there was another pub (a former M&B pub) on Stoney Stanton Rd which also had a mummified cat in the chimney. If my memory serves me correct, somewhere around Broad St/Station St Est area.

Nice collection Garlands. Mummified cats were a thing at one time and stories of them turning up in walls and under stairs pop up in the news periodically. I'm not sure whether they were to ward off witches or rats. Godiva and Leofric (but who remembers his name) were both myth and history. There was the Dun Cow myth connected to the city (eg the Dunn Cow pub) - A humble cupbearer, Guy of Warwick, had to prove his valour and become a knight to marry his love, the Lady Felice, the daughter of the Earl of Warwick. As part of his feats, a legendary, enormous cow from Shropshire was slain by the knight on Dunsmore Heath near Warwick and Rugby, not Coventry itself. Supposedly a witch milked the cow into a sieve, causing her to go on a rampage. In reference to the myth here was a large bone - looked like a shoulder, rather than a reputed rib - on the Gosford Gate. It was so large, it looked to be bigger than an aurochs shoulder so was possibly a whale bone or maybe a fossil. In the 1950s, artist Alma Ramsey-Hosking created a sculpture depicting the fight which was at one point placed on the archway above the pavement between Bull Yard and Shelton Square. I don't know if it's still there.

I remember Coventry streets back in the olden days before Health and Safety was invented. As a little boy, I was a right little b...... I mean, a right little so-and-so. I never believed in "luck", or anything to do with the "spirit" world. I still don't. (Sad, I can hear a lot of you thinking. But hey, it was what it was, and it still is what it is. No turning the clock back and re-living my life.) Any road up, back in the olden days there would often be a ladder leaning against a building, resting on the pavement. My mum would always say "Don't walk under the ladder, it's bad luck!". So on every occasion, I deliberately walked underneath the ladder just to prove her wrong. Of course, in later years, I realize that statistically, there is more chance of being hit by someone dropping something whilst walking under a ladder, as opposed to giving the ladder a wide berth. But luck? Nah.

Being born and having lived in Coventry all of my life. I have never heard of any of those !!

Same here Mick, I've never heard of those stories except the nonsense with regard to the round caff in The Lower Precinct revolving. It's never revolved. Clearly the person who made that up drank too much pop.

This is not a folk tale, but it is folklore. There is the Mayor of Hobbs Hole (Hobbs Hole was where the Transport Museum is now.) It is sometimes said that the election of Hobbs Hole was an old fertility custom (because it involved a well) and dated back over centuries. It does not; the election of 'mock mayors' was a fairly common custom around the 18th century, and the custom was simply a parody of the elaborate mayor making ceremonies that were for real at the time. & there was the occasion when Spring-heeled Jack appeared in Coventry!

Jabettsash. There are two claimed locations for the Hob or Hobb's Hole. The second was near the Bastille Gate (Cox Street gate) and I'm inclined to favour that position because it's mentioned as getting the well in 1689 and was also included on the 1850 Board of Health map. While the well was constructed at that time, given the location, there may have been an older spring in the area.

That's a great list, and it brought back a few memories. Coventry is full of those half-whispered stories that everyone seems to know a version of. I remember hearing the St Catherine's Well tale at school, always framed as a warning more than a legend. The spinning café one is brilliant too, because so many people swear it's true. I've also heard stories about secret tunnels under the city, supposedly linking churches and old merchant houses, though nobody ever agrees where they start. There's something about Lady Godiva sightings as well, usually late at night and always from a friend of a friend. These stories stick around because they're part of growing up here. They don't need proof. They just feel Coventry.

Hi Alia, welcome to the forum The story about tunnels is half true. The city had a lot of cellars, some of which connected but the tunnel theory probably came from what were essentially sewers/drains. These started out as defensive ditches, surrounding early structures. I have a theory that builders used existing holes in the ground as an excuse to sink underground features including cellars and sewars before they built over the top. One of the longest ditches crossed Gosford Street. It likely started out as the Red Ditch which protected the early city before the more famous city wall was built. There was certainly a property boundary that paralleled Cox Street and cut towards the Mermaid Inn cellar on Gosford Street. A cavity collapse in a yard on the other side of the street plus discoveries of man width, stone lined 'passages' further north gave the impression that it was a secret passage. However early maps show the ditch and wall boundary running towards the river but it never seemed to extend back as far as Whitefriars. It met south of the Mermaid with the known Red Ditch route and neither ditch obviously continued south or east. If anyone knows of any evidence of the Red Ditch towards the end of Gosford Street, I'd be very interested. The Benedictine priory in the centre had a boundary wall and ditch cutting across New Buildings and running north, parallel to Palmer Lane. It cut through the cellar of the Golden Dragon at the junction of the Bull Ring and New Buildings. That whole area was a mass of drains and water conduits to serve the priory and its mills. There does seem to have been a tunnel between the north of St Mary's Cathedral and a stone and timber building on the other side of Priory Row but it wasn't long. The cathedral was constructed down the slope towards the river and after demolition some levels of the complex remained, including rooms and corridors. These ended up buried by debris and soil build up but were never secret passageways. The surviving cellar outside the Herbert Art Gallery has an odd little window looking out into the soil, which makes no sense but if the cellar had been sunk into the castle ditch running round the cathedral and Bayley Lane, it might have looked out into air and north along the ditch. While the stone lining these ditches might have seemed too good to serve as drains, the city had at least two occasions where large amounts of demolition stone hit the market. I'm not sure how hard it is to date reused stone but there was no dating ability when many of these 'tunnels' were excavated.